Today, an abundant amount of meaningful and feature rich information content is truly at one's fingertips. Currently, using a personal computer (PC) and PC-based browser, one can find information online regarding just about anything they desire. One can communicate with people on the other side of the U.S. or world, set up a teleconference call, tap into the resources of other computers across the earth, search through the world's finest libraries, and visit images from the world's most remarkable museums. One can even use the PC-based browser to watch videos and listen to their favorite music, monitor the financial markets, find the local weather forecast, go shopping, download application software, and so on. Currently, all of this can be done with a personal computer and a PC-based browser that is tapped into a feature rich network of computers such as the Internet, Intranet, or Extranet.
At the same time, the field of communications, and more specifically wireless telecommunications, is currently undergoing a radical expansion. This technological expansion allows an electronic device, such as mobile personal digital assistant (PDA), cellular phone, pager, and other electronic devices to connect to the same information sources, such as a web server or database, as one could with the PC and a PC-based browser.
Unfortunately, this feature rich information content was developed for a standard PC-based browser, not a mobile or portable electronic device that might be limited in memory, screen size, bandwidth, navigation capabilities, power consumption, processing power, etc. For example, an electronic device, such as portable PDA, with a small screen size may be inappropriate to display the same information content originally intended for a PC-based browser, and viewed on a 15-inch or greater size display monitor. Consequently, the PDA can not be able to faithfully access and display information content as it was originally intended to be viewed. Therefore, it would be desirable to access, organize, and navigate information content including applications.
In another example, a mobile or wireless device with only low bandwidth capability may be unable to view information content intended for only high bandwidth applications. Parameters such as the mobile or wireless device's network connection, memory capacity, power restrictions, or other limitations of the device may require customization of information content that is delivered to or from the device. Therefore, it would be desirable to streamline the information content such that the desired content is received and presented at the mobile device as it was intended to be viewed.
In yet another example, current electronic devices cannot take full advantage of dynamically generated content and interactive Web sites that are typically hosted on today's Web servers. According to this example, scripting languages like JavaScript or Jscript allow a user on a PC-based browser to interact with markup language such as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) source code, thus enabling the use of dynamic content. However, it would be desirable for a portable electronic device, although possibly having limited abilities, to also utilize the modern and current scripting languages.
Currently, information content is sent to the device, but often in a format that the appliance, user, or network cannot conveniently accommodate, which produces undesirable results. For example, the data content might be unreadable on the display, displayed in an unorganized fashion, be too voluminous or bandwidth intensive to be received or displayed, and so on.
Thus, it would be desirable to transparently extend internet and intranet technologies to an electronic device over a wired or wireless domain.